Charity ranks Northamptonshire’s MPs on how they respond to emails

Published:06:27Tuesday 14 June 2016

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Northamptonshire’s MPs have been ranked in a new league table on how well they respond to constituents’ emails.

The table, produced by UK charity, mySociety which runs the website WriteToThem.com which makes it simple for people to contact their elected MP. Two weeks after writing to their MP, users are asked whether or not they received a response.

MP for Northampton South, David Mackintosh, was fifth out of 642 MPs after responding to 93 percent of emails. MP for Northampton North, Michael Ellis, was in 14th place, responding to 88 percent of emails.

Elsewhere, MP for South Northamptonshire, Andrea Leadsom, was in 327th place, responding to 51 percent of emails, MP for Daventry, Chris Heaton-Harris was ranked 187th, replying to 63 percent of emails, MP for Wellingborough Peter Bone was in 519th place, responding to 32 percent of emails, Philip Hollobone MP for Kettering was in 66th place, replying to 78% of emails and Tom Pursglove MP for Corby was in 341st place, responding to 49% of emails.

Myfanwy Nixon, communications manager at mySociety, said the results were important.

“Responding to constituents’ emails is not the only measure by which we should judge our MPs, but it is an important one. Constituents turn to their MPs when they have problems that can’t be solved elsewhere, or when they feel very strongly about an issue,” she said.

Ms Nixon added: “Constituents of Northampton South should be particularly pleased with their recently-elected MP: his performance is significantly better than his predecessor Brian Binley, whose ranking for last year put him at 618th place in a field of 635 qualifying MPs.

“MPs should be held to account. If you don’t think your MP is pulling their weight when it comes to responding to emails, tell them so. If all else fails, tell everyone else — your local paper, their party office, and, ultimately, their party chair. And of course, at the next general election, if you’re really dissatisfied, you’ll know what to do,” she added.

Anyone can check the performance of their own MP at www.writetothem.com/stats.

mySociety’s rankings are based only on emails sent through the WriteToThem website. Where response levels were particularly low, a further check was performed to confirm that the site’s database held the correct contact details. WriteToThem has measures in place to prevent mass-mailings or messages to MPs other than the user’s own.